


without you

by santanico



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Letters, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-10
Updated: 2014-03-10
Packaged: 2018-01-15 05:40:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1293397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/santanico/pseuds/santanico
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fury gives Steve the letters that accumulated while he was on ice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	without you

**Author's Note:**

> for lena, because you're the worst xoxoxox  
> i warn for death because it's mostly about bucky being dead/gone etc

“Um,” Clint Barton says, peering into the kitchen. “Mr…Mr. Captain America?”

Steve glances over his shoulder and frowns at Clint. “You can call me Steve.”

Clint shrugs. He’s in jeans and a t-shirt that looks like it still has blood stains soaked into it from months, possibly years ago. Steve wraps his fingers around the mug of coffee he had just finished stirring milk into and lifts it up to sip at, watching Clint and waiting.

“Fury wants to see you,” Clint finally says. He clears his throat and scratches at the back of his neck. “Didn’t say why,” he says and shuffles further into the kitchen, looking just past Steve and at the coffee mug. Steve glances at it and frowns, wondering why Clint avoids his gaze.

“Okay,” he says after a moment. “Thanks. There’s more coffee, if that’s what you’re here for.” Brief silence, then Clint nods and clears his throat again, moving around Steve to busy his hands grabbing for a mug and pouring himself the coffee.

Steve doesn’t question it and sighs, heading down the hall and then up the elevator towards Nick Fury’s office.

He always finds it kind of amusing that Fury even _has_ an office, though considering he’s a ‘director’, it does make sense. It just seems, on principle, unlikely. At any rate, it’s uncharacteristic. Nick Fury is not the type to sit around sorting through piles of papers or mail, filling out forms and sheets and doing busywork.

So Steve is considerably surprised when he finds Nick Fury sitting at his large desk, stacks and stacks of mail surrounding him. “These,” he says, and his voice is annoyed but not angry as he glowers at Steve, “are for you.”

Steve hesitates, frowning, and then reaches out for one of the envelopes. It’s aged and cracks around the edges, and seams loose, and addressed in loopy handwriting to his old apartment in Brooklyn. He stares at it, then grabs another piece of mail, which seems to be considerably newer, but at least ten years old – same address.

“These are all the letters sent to your address, sent to you. They ended up in my office.” Fury is staring at him now, gauging Steve’s reaction. He stands and steps around one of the piles, folding his arms. “Look, Cap. If you wanna throw them out, that’s fine, because you might find some weird shit in here, all things considered. Most of these were sent long after you were assumed dead, by people who thought you’d never read them. By people who are probably dead now, too.”

Steve nods.

“I’ll leave you alone. Call me, whatever you do.”

Steve nods again.

He sits down at Fury’s desk and starts to leaf through the letters. Some of the pages are crisp and clear, and he opens envelopes both old and new, frowning as they re-accumulate on the floor besides him. Young boys hoping he’ll kill the Nazis. People begging for him to do one thing, do the other, save their family, _marry_ them. Love confessions from old women on their death beds, weird notes that were probably never meant to be read. Secret words.

He’s got the lamp on a few hours later, sitting in the dark as the moon rises in the sky. He doesn’t think as he reads letter after letter, eyes scanning pages that blur together. He feels like he has to get through every word even though there’s so much of it.

He hesitates for the first time when he recognizes the loose scrawl of a friend. He opens up the fraying envelope with gentle fingers and removes the pristine and untouched letter, breath caught in his throat.

_Dear Steve,_

He dares to continue.

_I don’t know if you’ll get this. I don’t know where you are. Maybe you’ll read this when I’m already gone. I hope it brings you comfort if that turns out to be the case. I’m sorry if it does._

_War is strange. It does things to you, things you don’t expect. They mask it in propaganda, tell you you’ll be a hero._

_But I’m not a hero, Steve._

_I think I was a hero to you. In ways, I understand that. You in all your bravery and scrawniness. It makes me laugh, in retrospect, but it also makes me miserable._

_I miss you, but I’m glad you can’t be here. I think your blind optimism would be ruined. I think you would cry, and I have no reason to want to see you cry._

_My hand shakes as I write this. I’m not used to it shaking like this, because I’ve learned how to shoot with expert accuracy and I never miss, either. But it feels like I’ve been missing, and this might be the last chance I have to explain why._

_I fought with it for years, ignored it because I thought I might hurt you but I don’t care anymore. I love you. I love you more than words can say. Not as a friend. As something more than that._

Steve stops and nearly crumbles up the letter; he has to resist ever cell in his body that says to walk away. He takes a deep breath through his nose and closes his eyes for a long moment. His dead best friend wrote him this note and said nothing when they saw each other again. Steve reads on.

_I hope this finds you well. I hope it finds you, at all. I know you’ll keep trying, I know you want to serve. What you see is a way to defeat evil, to end cruelty. I admire that. Again, your blind optimism. But I want you to be safe, and it’s as selfish a wish as your wish to serve against all odds is._

_If you’re reading this, wherever you are, whoever you are – then you’re wondering, likely, what my confession means. It is a confession, that I love you. You’re my brother but you’re also a man I’ve known since I was young and alone and you ended that loneliness. Being lonely is empty. I think you’re someone who understands that. You may be one of the only people in the world who does._

_I love you._

_Again, I can’t stop writing it. It's freeing._

_Steve –_

There’s something scratched out on the page and Steve squints and peers but he can’t make it out. His stomach swoops and clenches and he sighs, scans to the next few lines where Bucky’s writing comes back.

_I’m sorry to lay this on you. If I die, I think you’ll only weep. Maybe you’ll see me differently, find me pathetic and worthless, but somehow I don’t think that’s what you believe. I don’t think you’d be angry with me, or disgusted. You have always been the kind of person who sees past the darkness in people’s hearts. I don’t think loving you is dark._

_Now, maybe. But only because you’re not here._

_I’m leaving tomorrow, leaving camp and hopefully the 107th will be successful. I can’t make any promises. I hope to send this in the morning, and maybe it’ll show up on your doorstep months later, after the news of my death has reached America again._

_If I see you…if I don’t die, by some matter of luck, I don’t know what I’ll do. Maybe you’ll have read this letter, maybe it’ll have been lost. I know I wrote it, that I confessed it in the dark in my bunk and wondered how you’d react. Maybe you’d kiss me. Admitting that is terrifying. Hoping for that is terrifying. I think you would, only if to comfort me. Maybe you’d say you love me too, maybe you’d say that I was your brother and friend and that was fine, wasn’t it?_

_I can’t think of anything else to admit tonight._

_Good-night, Steve._

He reads it again. Reads closer, a third time.

The pain is excruciating. He shakes. His shoulders quiver and his heart aches. It’s overwhelming and all consuming and Steve leans over the desk and weeps into the letters beneath him. The tears feel endless as the hole rips itself into his chest and stomach and his body feels just as empty, once again.

A part of him is glad that he had seen Bucky again.

They may not have kissed, they may not have held each other, but he got to let Bucky see his face and know they were both alive. Until Bucky fell.

_You’re the only one who’s afraid of heights._

The memory throbs through him again. Bucky taking him on roller coasters, forcing him through the wooden horrors. Now, nothing scares him, the same way that nothing had ever scared Bucky.

Except loving Steve.

He wipes tears from under his eyes but they don’t stop.

When he looks up, Natasha is standing in the doorway. Her eyes are warm, her lips parted but she doesn’t say anything. She watches him with her hand on the wall, hesitating.

Steve nods to acknowledge her and she steps in, walking around the piles of letters and the pieces scattered along the floor. Natasha pauses and licks her lips and touches his shoulder and it’s only then that Steve feels the truth of the bruise on his heart, and how it rests in the very core of his self.

Natasha picks up the letter and he glances at her, watches her eyes sweep over the words. Natasha is strange. Something tightens in her expression and she sets the note down. A part of him wants to be righteously angry that she didn’t even bother to ask but – then she looks at him, and her usually wooden eyes are now bright and her lips are pressed tight together.

“I’m so sorry,” she says. Steve doesn’t touch her but he breathes her in. She’s a reminder in ways, of the wound that Bucky’s death has left, but he isn’t sure why. Who is she? “You’ll see him again,” she murmurs, and her hand brushes the back of his neck.

The intimacy she offers shouldn’t be comforting but right now, Steve’s never been lonelier. If it’s all he has, he’ll take it.

Of course, when he sees those eyes, he knows. They’re Bucky’s eyes, shrouded by thick dark hair and bottled rage.

He can’t do this. He can’t.


End file.
